Monday, January 9, 2006

James Frey Drama

Check out The Smoking Gun's story on James Frey and how they believe they have proof that he embellished or even made up a lot of the material in his memoir, A Million Little Pieces.

It's an interesting read, they obviously did a lot of investigating and researching to get their information, but what scares me off is the malicious tone of some of the things they've got there. Taking jabs at his "crackhead girlfriend" when the girl has gone and committed suicide - that's just not very cool.

It doesn't give the story the tone that I think they would like, it allows you to see their true motive: to bring a person down who is really enjoying a lot of success right now.

What if some of the stuff is embellished? Well, from all the things I've seen, it's clear a lot of it has been. Frey admits as much. But how much is too much in the memoir genre?

If this book hadn't affected so many people (as it did me, as well as the sequel), it probably wouldn't be an issue. But a lot of people are now invested in this story and in the author, and these allegations could bring all of that down.

Which is what The Smoking Gun looks to be trying to pull off here.

They should've stuck with the journalistic tone they have at the start, that would've been more effective, more trustworthy, and less like something out of the enquirer.

I'm trying to get onto Frey's website to see what he's got on there about all of this but it's pretty congested, looks like a whole bunch of people are knocking on the door looking for answers.